Raila Amollo Odinga

Hailing from a strong political lineage, Raila is the son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga who was Kenya's first post-Independence Vice-President. He is known to his supporters by his first name Raila rather than Odinga or RAO or Agwambo.

Born on 02/014/1945 in Maseno, Kisumo District, Nyanza Province, Raila was baptised as an Anglican in his youth, Odinga later became a Born-Again Christian through an Evangelical church in Nairobi.

Odinga is married to Ida Odinga (née Anyango Oyoo). They live in Karen, Nairobi, and have a second home at Opoda Farm, in the Bondo District. The couple have four children: Fidel (born 1973), Rosemary (born 1977), Raila Jr. (born 1979) and Winnie (born 1990). Fidel is named after Fidel Castro and Winnie after Winnie Mandela. Winnie is currently studying Communication and International Area Studies as a double major student at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

He was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Langata
in 1992, served as Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002 and as Minister
of Roads, Public Works, and Housing from 2003 to 2005. He was the main
opposition candidate in the 2007 presidential election. Following a violent post-electoral crisis,
Odinga took office as Prime Minister in April 2008, serving as
supervisor of a national unity coalition government. He came in second
in Kenya's 2013 presidential elections after garnering 5,340,546 votes which represented 43.28% of the total votes cast.

Raila has been a recognised force in Kenyan politics since his alleged involvement in a failed coup attempt against President Daniel Arap Moi in 1982. His links to the coup saw him imprisoned for six years before being released in February 1988 – only to be arrested again in September 1988 for involvement with the Kenya Revolutionary Movement, which was pressing for multi-party democracy in Kenya.

He fled to Norway in October 1991, following his allegations of attempted government assassinations, and only returned to Kenya in 1992 to join the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD). After FORD's split in the run up to the 1992 elections, Raila became the Deputy Director of FORD-Kenya, led by his father. At this time, he also won the Langata Constituency Parliamentary seat which he still holds.

In the run-up to the 2013 elections, Raila’s ODM formed the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) alliance with Kenyan Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka’s Wiper Democratic Movement and other parties. Under the CORD banner, Odinga and Musyoka campaigned for the posts of president and vice president, respectively. Among the eight presidential candidates, Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta—this time representing the Jubilee Coalition—were front-runners going into the March 4 election, which transpired with relative calm. After a delay in the release of the final results, due to problems with the vote-tallying process, electoral officials announced that Odinga received 43.31 percent of the vote, placing second to Kenyatta, who was declared the winner with 50.07 percent of the vote—just enough to avoid a second round of voting. Odinga did not at first concede. Citing what he maintained were many irregularities with the election, he filed a challenge to the results with the Supreme Court but promised to respect the court’s decision. The court ultimately upheld the election results, and Odinga conceded.